


i don't have a heart you can break

by livbartlet



Category: Captain America (Movies), Dark Knight Rises (2012), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6696640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livbartlet/pseuds/livbartlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if you found an opening to an alternate universe? What would any cat do?</p>
<p>(Set post Dark Knight Rises, post first Avengers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don't have a heart you can break

"I loved him, and he died. He died saving the world."  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
  
  
When the world begins to bleed - the skin of the known universe cracking like bloody knuckles, messy - or parting like skin under a scalpel, clean and frightening -  
  
When anyone who cares or dares to look can see beyond the surface -   
  
Selina Kyle is the first to slip through a fissure in the world and land in the _other_.  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
The same, really. But so different. Brighter, maybe. And she's incredibly out of place, but that's a fact that belongs to her soul and not her location.  
  
She runs her fingers against brick and steel, walking these busy sidewalks, watching these people and their blithe disregard for impending doom. "This will do nicely," she says to no one.  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
She only assumes it is the work of someone in her own world that has sent parallel lanes of existence swerving in on each other, chipping away small pieces, carving out a path for something else.  
  
She knows she can survive, because she's done that already hasn't she. Survived the metaphorical collapse of the best world she knew. What's a little literal destruction on top of it?  
  
A pearl necklace and a black suit in her bag - she has everything she needs. It's time for The Cat to make her mark again.  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
  
It doesn't take long to identify the most tempting target in her new home - rich, egomaniacal, a superhero in the open; the flipside of a coin she might think of as Bruce - and she always did love crashing parties.  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
"Any attempts to open the safe will be unsuccessful," a man with an incredibly uptight British accent announces.  
  
"Says who?" She turns to find she is still alone in the room. An intercom? But not Stark, who is American and whose voice she would recognize because he is perpetually on the evening news.  
  
"It is a Stark design." As if that explained everything.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"How rude of me. As I have been tracking your movements since you arrived at Stark Tower, I ought to introduce myself - I am J-"  
  
"That's Jarvis," says a shadow from the doorway. Still not Stark, but now she's not alone, and getting out of here just became a whole lot trickier.  
  
"How nice for him. And you are?"  
  
"Steve. And I wouldn't try anything if I were you."  
  
"Like what." Her back is up, she'll give him that. He's blocking the doorway and without a window to go through, she'll have to go through him - and he looks big, even as the details remain nebulous in the dark. But what the hell, she figures.  
  
She's a blur of motion, the killer heel of one her boots heading straight for his neck...except she connects with only air, and when she tries to correct all that forward motion out of an unceremonious splat she is yanked out of trajectory by what seems to be a single hand.  
  
The lights come on as she hits the floor and the man named Steve frowns at her while his right hand presses on her sternum.  
  
"Now, now, don't get up on my account." Stark, finally. "Well, help the lady up, Steve."  
  
"What kind of freak show are you running here," she rolls her to feet, realizing she's more nervous than she's been in a long long while - something is not right.  
  
"Freak show? We take exception, I think. But then you can probably be excused some...misperceptions. Given that you are from an alternate universe."  
  
  
  
\- - -

 

"What, are you going to send me back?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
And just like that she's becomes not a thief and not an enemy...something else, something she never expected again.  
  
Because Stark absolutely expects that she will want to help. He doesn't ask, he doesn't try appealing to her morality, he just proceeds on the assumption that thwarting the destruction of two universes is something she wants a hand in, _should_ have a hand in.  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
Stark is easy; she understands Stark and his ego and his elaborate motivations. And the rest of them, too - they're easy to read, but not simple or stupid, even though she wonders at their incredible naivete. It's Rogers - Steve - the one who appears to be the simplest of them all, who sticks in her gut and makes her nervous.  
  
"You shouldn't trust me," she says to Steve, some hours later, on the stoop of her building, pre-dawn light offering the illusion they've been out all night on a date of all things.  
  
"I don't necessarily."  
  
"Good."  
  
"But Tony trusts your sense of self-preservation, and I trust his judgement."  
  
"Can I go in now before all the nobility smothers me."  
  
"What was so bad - there - to make you come here?"  
  
"Nothing left worth stealing."  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
  
She refuses to play house with everyone else. And so a ritual is born; Steve walks her home at whatever ungodly hour Stark sends everyone away so he can think and they can sleep.  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
  
"I'm not helping at all. I don't have any information and I'm not a genius. Why are we still playing this game."  
  
"Even Natasha likes you. You're in now whether you like it or not."  
  
"And you?"  
  
"Do I like you?"  
  
"What, are we twelve years old?"  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
He's leaning in, and oh she _wants_ it, but she's terrified, too. Enough to take a step back. "I don't date heroes, Steve."  
  
"What happened to you?" His ability to read her, his compassion for the broken things inside her will surely be the death of her.  
  
"I could ask the same thing."  
  
"Time," he says after a long pause. "Time passed me by and all my friends and everyone I loved died."  
  
"You have friends now."  
  
"I do. And it helps. You might want to try it."  
  
  
  
\- - -  
  
  
  
"I'm no good at this," she whispers against his shoulder, his bare skin.  
  
"Hate to disagree, but I'd say you're pretty damn good at it."  
  
"Seriously, Steve."  
  
"Seriously, Selina."  
  
"I am being serious."  
  
"I know. So tell me."  
  
"His name was Bruce."


End file.
